Walmart To Combine Its eCommerce and Store Teams

As Walmart aims plans to grow its online business and cut discord between units, the retailer is bringing together its store and eCommerce product-buying teams, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Manufacturers that sold items in Walmart’s physical stores and on Walmart.com had to pitch two distinct buying teams, and groups sometimes had discordant opinions over pricing differences between in-store and online products.

The retailer is making six category teams, such as apparel, entertainment, food, and consumables. An executive will head up each team and eventually purchase each product Walmart sells in the U.S. The food and consumable groups will commence joint buying right away, and other purchasing categories will join forces as time goes on.

Walmart has long had a different store and online shopping teams. The retailer, however, has been slowly bringing the two together as the business blends. It joined its store and online supply chains and finance groups in 2019. Even so, the retailer kept two distinct chief executives for the U.S. web and store businesses. The two will remain in their positions with the revised structure.

66% of Products From Non-EU Shops Fail Safety Tests, Says Research

According to research conducted by six European consumers’ associations, two-thirds of products purchased from the online marketplaces such as AliExpress, Wish, LightInTheBox, eBay and Amazon have failed safety tests.

For over a year, the European consumers’ associations Which (The United Kingdom), Stiftung Warentest (Germany), Altroconsumo (Italy), Consumentenbond (The Netherlands), Test Aankoop (Belgium) and Forbrugerrådet Tænk (Denmark) ordered a total of 250 products to conduct the research.

They placed these orders at the popular online marketplaces AliExpress, Wish, LightInTheBox, eBay and Amazon, to see how safe the products really are. Out of 250 products examined, 165 of them (66 percent) didn’t pass relevant safety tests.

The organizations put 18 different product types through different kinds of sets. And these have led to some shocking results. For example, 7 out of 7 carbon monoxide alarms and 11 out of 12 travel adaptors led to a safety test failure.

eBay to Launch Managed Payments in UK

American e-tailer eBay will introduce its managed payments experience in the United Kingdom, making this the third market to offer the new payments experience, after the US and Germany. The service offers buyers flexibility and choice in payment methods while giving sellers a better way to manage their businesses.

eBay’s managed payments programme lets the platform process the payments directly instead of relying on PayPal, enabling customers to enter payment information and process it without having to travel to a third-party site and leave the eBay interface.

“By starting to manage payments in the UK this year, we’re taking another step to deliver improvements for our customers. We know that sellers and buyers expect smooth and seamless transactions, and this new payments experience is designed to offer exactly that,” said UK Rob Hattrell, Vice President, eBay.

Amazon Launches Business Prime in Spain

Amazon Business Prime has launched in Spain, the fourth market in Europe where this premium service can now be used by businesses. With Amazon Business Prime, customers get unlimited free delivery in one business day, as well as delivery on the same evening.

Germany was the first European market where Amazon launched Amazon Business Prime in 2017. Two years later, Amazon expanded the service to the United Kingdom and France. Other countries where Amazon offers Prime for businesses, are the US, Japan, and Canada.

“Business Prime allows customers to take full advantage of the great selection, pricing, and purchasing experience on Amazon Business”, Christopher Kallscheid, Head of Amazon Business in Spain.

To make use of the perks of Amazon Business Prime, companies need to register for an annual membership. Costs vary, from 36 euros per year for up to three users to 2,000 euros per year for over 100 users.

News source: CNBC, ecommercenews.eu, The Guardian